Artificial; Part 1

I woke up to find his hand on my thigh. The car was cold but it felt warmer with the jacket he had laid across me. I looked over to see him still asleep. He sprawled out straight across the car seat and was snoring like a baby. You could almost see his breath from how cold it was. The sky was gray and I wasn't sure if that was the clouds or ash. I sat up in the car seat and looked back behind us. You could still see it. It was all burned and broken but some of it still stood. A landmark. A warning symbol to what people are willing to do when they have enough money and think no one is looking. The ash from the fire looked like snow almost. My heart stopped. I forgot about the security guard who got away. He was on foot, and injured, but still he got away. Noah finally woke up. He looked over with the biggest smile. He always knew how to make me feel better. I can't lie I use to take his smile for granted, Until I too knew what it really took to be able to smile for someone else's sake and happiness. Now I can't do anything else but smile back and look at him like I'm falling in love all over again. "Do you think he's going to know it was us, who". He didn't let me finish "The nearest town is at LESAT 30 miles from here. and there wasn't any running busses for another 20. There's no way he made it anywhere, not on that leg I gave him". I was silent for a while. Somtimes it took me a second to process how a man I trusted completely could do something like that to someone else and feel no remorse. But I knew that wasn't true. I knew he was just being strong for me, and I hated that he had to keep doing that, But in this moment I needed him so much. So I just prayed he knew how grateful I was to him. "How's your head?". He touched the top of my head and pressed down were I said I would feel the shock waves. I love how I can tell him things like that and he doesn't call me crazy, He tends to me like he would any other wound and believes me completely. "It's fine. Just a little sore". Okay I'm going to roll real quick then we gotta start heading out". While he started taking out his papers I sat there and thought. I thought about how everything I do effects step mother in some way. How last night must have been an intense headache for her, because it was defiently stresssful for me. I thought about the moments that Noah looked at me and made me feel safe and at home and got mad to think that she was also reciprocating those calming emotions. Someone who uses someone else soul-ly on selfish terms should not be able to reap the benefits or fruits produced of that person. Then I thought of Noah, and if when he looks at me if he also thinks of her. How when he's helping me that he's helping her. I think he sees me being worried because he grabs my face and pulls me close. "Hey, you know I love you right?". He looks at me with strong reasureing eyes that everything will be okay and I know that he's here for me. That when he looks at me like that he's looking at me, and my story, and not hers. And I feel safe all over again. He lights the end of his roll and passes it to me. I take it and breath in. The ash around me starts to feel comforting, knowing that what happened to me can never happen again. I close my eyes to take in the moment and when I open them again, I know what we started, has just begun.